Indian Country Today Media Network.com - Colonizationhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/tags/colonization
enEnding the Mental Attitudes of Colonizationhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/01/06/ending-mental-attitudes-colonization
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">Damian Webster and Emmy Scott ask important questions in their recent </span><a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/12/04/our-culture-our-standards-our-rules-defense-traditionalism-158122" style="line-height:1.6em;" target="_blank">article</a><span style="line-height:1.6em;">, "A Defense of Traditionalism": "What is a successful Native person?" "Whose standard are we attempting to meet?" "Do we expect our children to know our creation stories, speeches, or ceremonial songs in the same manner we expect them to know their times tables, U.S. history dates, or the U.S. Constitution?"</span></p>
<p>They raise these questions in the context of the Navajo language requirement that precluded Chris Deschene from running for the office of Navajo Nation President. Webster and Scott don't criticize Deschene for speaking more English than Navajo, nor do they make an issue of the fact that another candidate for the presidency, Joe Shirley, Jr., professes a mixture of Christianity and Navajo beliefs.</p>
<p>Their defense of traditional values focuses a philosophical call to action, bigger and broader than a specific political campaign. As they point out, defense of traditional values runs head on into mass culture, commercialism, and pressures toward uniformity. The capitalist system of economics makes everything—lands and people—into commodities to buy and sell.</p>
<p>The phrase "free market" hides the fact that we cannot participate in the market economy unless we have money; and the only way to get money (if you aren't born into it) involves finding something to sell. We learn to sell ourselves. We learn to fit into the "needs of the market."</p>
<p>Identity becomes a brand, rather than a sign of internal, individual meaning. The ads say, "be you," but they are designed to sell a product. The market economy speaks of "individualism," but it produces assimilation.</p>
<p>As Webster and Scott say, "Native men and women often cut their hair stating reasons of opportunities for better jobs. We dress up in business suits without question because we want to appear 'presentable' in our careers. But whose standard are we attempting to meet, and who determines what is deemed presentable?"</p>
<p>They add, "We are conforming to a system which was designed to exclude us entirely. Despite understanding this, we continue to allow others to choose the standards for us. We need to openly challenge these imposed standards."</p>
<p>The market economy does exclude ways of life that impede the flow of capital. When a People defend their lands against capitalist "resource" extraction, the market sees an enemy. The market system knows no holy ground.</p>
<p>Likewise, the market has no room for human relations based on sacredness. Traditional societies get in the way of the market, because they do not value money above all else. The market can deal with traditional "crafts" and can turn a ceremony into a tourist attraction. But when a People insist on maintaining traditional relations, which often—maybe always—involve sharing the necessities of life, the market sees another enemy.</p>
<p>Colonialism aims at imposing the market system on traditional communities, destroying traditional sharing economies and forcing people to make a living by selling their labor. A central principle of the allotment process, which was encouraged and supported by the Christian missions—was to "civilize" Indians by breaking their social relations of sharing and coercing them into individual "self-reliance." The boarding school program aimed explicitly at that goal.</p>
<p>Though the boarding school regime no longer dominates Native education, the "civilizing" mission continues, in other guises. As Webster and Scott put it, "We continue to push Western education upon our children year after year, just as it was pushed upon us, and those before. We tell them education is the future. You must be educated. It has been said that we must know our enemy if we are to defeat them, to beat them at their own game. We can appreciate that sentiment, but what about the other side? We might know our enemy now, but how well do we know ourselves?"</p>
<p>Webster and Scott conclude, "It would be a powerful statement for our future generations if we dedicated as much effort to success in our own tribal institutions as we dedicate to the Western one."</p>
<p>Their call echoes the words of Patrice Lumumba, a great anti-colonial leader of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, who led the Congolese independence movement against Belgium and was elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo. Lumumba's government survived only twelve weeks, when a rival who conspired with the Belgians to take control of the mineral mines ousted him from power. The US CIA and Britain's MI6 were both implicated in Lumumba's assassination, as part of Cold War maneuvering in the former European colonies.</p>
<p>One of the most famous statements Lumumba ever made, as he spoke to the opening session of the Pan-African Congress in August 1960, explained that "no matter what standards of living the colonized enjoy," the anti-colonial struggle was "to restore the dignity of…people." He added, "Our aim is to restore Africa's cultural, philosophical, ethical, and social values, and to safeguard our resources."</p>
<p>Webster and Scott speak in a similar powerful voice, calling for Native peoples "to maintain who we are and remain distinct in our tribal nations."</p>
<p>Lumumba described the effort to undo colonialism—what Webster and Scott refer to as "dedication to success in our own tribal institutions"—saying, "We…have to review everything we had done, and think everything through again by ourselves…. We knew that we would have to…revise the methods that had been forced upon us, and above all to rediscover our most intimate selves and rid ourselves of mental attitudes and complexes and habits that colonization had trapped us in for centuries."</p>
<p>May it be so.</p>
<p><em>Peter d’Errico graduated from Yale Law School in 1968. He was staff attorney in Dinebeiina Nahiilna Be Agaditahe Navajo Legal Services, 1968-1970, in Shiprock. He taught Legal Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1970-2002. He is a consulting attorney on indigenous issues.</em></p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Ending the Attitudes of Colonization</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/history" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">History</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/human-rights" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Human rights</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/sovereignty" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sovereignty</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Peter d&#039;Errico</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/peter-derrico" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Peter d&#039;Errico</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/damian-webste" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Damian Webste</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/emmy-scott" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Emmy Scott</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/colonization" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Colonization</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/native-americans-canada-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Navajo</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/mi6" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">MI6</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/cia" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">CIA</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/peter-d%27errico" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Peter d&#039;Errico</a></div></div></div>Tue, 06 Jan 2015 18:21:27 +0000mazecyrus158575 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2015/01/06/ending-mental-attitudes-colonization#commentsThe Role of Latin in Empire and Colonizationhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/10/22/role-latin-empire-and-colonization
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">Some years ago, I purchased </span><em style="line-height:1.6em;">Latin for Americans</em><span style="line-height:1.6em;"> (B. L. Ullman, Charles Henderson, and Norman E. Henry, New York: the MacMillan Co., 1962) at a used bookstore. It’s a high school textbook that was published at a time when some pre-college students were still being expected to learn Latin. The opening section, “Our Roman Heritage,” tells us that the authors were expecting the students to think of themselves as having a heritage that traces back to Rome and the Roman Empire. “This, then, is the mighty and ancient tradition of which you are a part,” they wrote.</span></p>
<p>Suppose there was an American Indian student in the Latin class back then. Would it not have been strange to expect the Native student to think of herself as having a heritage that traces back to Rome and the Roman Empire?</p>
<p>The textbook authors also say in “Our Roman Heritage”: “Nothing could be more incorrect than the idea that Latin is dead…On the contrary, in one form or another Latin is very much alive today and in large measure what has given the Romans immortality.” Because Latin lives on in the English language, knowledge of Latin is important for gaining a deeper recognition of the colonizing patterns of English and English words.</p>
<p>The authors further say that 2,500 years ago the political and military power of Rome “dominated most of the rest of the civilized world.” They point out that the Romance languages of Spain, Portugal, France, Italy and Romania “are living descendants of the Latin spoken by the Romans who conquered and colonized these lands.”</p>
<p>In the above paragraph, we find three key words “dominated,” “conquered,” and “colonized.” On reflection, “conquered and colonized” are synonyms for “dominated.” For this reason, the above sentence is accurately re-expressed as follows: Those languages “are living descendents of Latin spoken by the Romans who dominated these lands.” This re-expression matches perfectly the idea quoted above that Rome “dominated most of the rest of the civilized world.”</p>
<p>Another word for “the civilized world” is “civilization.” A little noticed definition of “civilization” matches the aforementioned idea that Rome and Romans “dominated.” That definition of “civilization” is, “the forcing of a particular culture on a population to whom it is foreign.”</p>
<p>Foreigners forcing their culture and language upon another people results in a foreign domination of the people upon whom that culture and language is imposed. The authors of <em>Latin for Americans</em> reference this kind of domination in history when they write: “Rome was at the same time <em>urbs et obis</em>—<em>city and world</em>, and Latin came to be used everywhere, largely replacing the native tongues.” Roman domination caused this trend of “largely replacing the native tongues.”</p>
<p>All this leads to a point of critical importance for our Nations and Peoples when using the English language to decolonize our minds: domination is a synonym for civilization, and vice versa. Dominated is a synonym for civilized, and vice versa. Dominating is a synonym for “civilizing,” and vice versa. Uncivilized savages means un-dominated savages; “wild” savages means those still living free of or free from domination.</p>
<p>The <em>Latin for Americans</em> textbook says that “[m]ore than sixty per cent of English words are derived or taken from Latin.” Those English words trace back to Rome and the Roman Empire’s ever-expanding domination (“civilization”). They are words in English that were first developed with a Roman perspective, and we need to take that into consideration.</p>
<p>Take, for example, the word “conquer.” When the Roman Empire is said to have “conquered” a given place, this means that it is said to have attained a “military victory” or “triumph” over that place, from the viewpoint of the Roman Empire. A victory or triumph is something “celebrated” or “celebratory” from the viewpoint of those who consider themselves to be the victors, or winners. It is this point of view that has led to the saying, “history is written by the victors.”</p>
<p>So, what about the viewpoint of those over whom Romans consider themselves to have attained a celebrated win? Why would Nations and Peoples that have ended up on the receiving end of Roman domination call it “a victory?” If those being dominated call the domination imposed on them a “victory” or “conquest,” this suggests that they view themselves as an enemy over whom a “victory” or “conquest” has been achieved. Strangely, they are thereby framing the Romans’ successful domination over them not only as their “defeat,” but something to be “celebrated,”</p>
<p>We as the Original Nations and Peoples of Great Turtle Island need to learn from the above patterns. We need to refuse to allow the celebratory and victorious words conquest and conquered to be applied to our Nations. We need to replace “conquered” and “the conquest” with “dominated” and “the domination.” By doing so, we are thereby acknowledging that our Nations are not defeated for we are still questioning and challenging wrongful, unacceptable, and ongoing patterns of domination imposed on us. We need to take the position that we shall forever possess the right to live free of imposed patterns of domination asserted against and over our originally free Nations and Peoples.</p>
<p>The word “domination” does not contain a celebratory view of a dominating imposition. Use of the word domination is strategic and tactical. It shows that we are challenging rather than accepting domination. Nor does it ascribe a “win” to the invaders who have imposed the form of domination they euphemistically call “civilization” on our originally free Nations and Peoples.</p>
<p>Chief Justice John Roberts of the U.S. Supreme Court studied five years of Latin in just four years. We may therefore assume that he is well aware of the domination orientation of the Latin-premised word “subjection” used against our Nations by both the majority and by the dissenting members of the Court in the May 2014 decision <em>Michigan</em> v. <em>Bay Mills Indian Community</em>.</p>
<p>The word subjection means to place under, or to classify under domination, but subjection also traces to the Latin <em>servitus</em>, “slavery, slaves, property.” And property has been defined as “the first establishment of socially approved physical domination over some part of the natural world,” which is sometimes called “occupancy” or “possession.” (Jesse Dukeminier and James E. Krier, <em>Property</em>, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1981, p. 2). A domination-premised claim of U.S. possession is behind the United States government’s use of “our Indian tribes,” or “U.S. Indian tribes.”</p>
<p>So here’s a question: What is our political and decolonizing counter-argument to the Latin language basis of the Court’s statement that our nations exist in “subjection” to the American domination, which is sometimes called “protection and authority” and sometimes called the “plenary power” of the United States? What is our political counter-argument especially given that the U.S.’s claim of a right of “subjection” (<em>servitus</em>) is premised on the Christian “right of discovery” and right of “ultimate dominion” (domination) otherwise known in the Latin language as <em>dominorum Christianorum</em> and <em>dominationes</em>.</p>
<p><em>Steven Newcomb (Shawnee, Lenape) is co-founder and co-director of the Indigenous Law Institute and author of Pagans in the Promised Land: Decoding the Doctrine of Christian Discovery (Fulcrum, 2008). He has been studying U.S. federal Indian law and international law since the early 1980s.</em></p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Latin&#039;s Role in Empire and Colonization</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/language" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Language</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Steven Newcomb</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/latin" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Latin</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/roman-empire" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Roman Empire</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/colonization" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Colonization</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/chief-justice-john-roberts" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Chief Justice John Roberts</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/steven-newcomb" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Steven Newcomb</a></div></div></div>Wed, 22 Oct 2014 12:00:21 +0000mazecyrus157448 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/10/22/role-latin-empire-and-colonization#commentsA Letter to Pope Francis: Abolish the Papal Bull Behind Colonization!http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/10/14/letter-pope-francis-abolish-papal-bull-behind-colonization
<fieldset class="field-group-fieldset group-opinions-body form-wrapper" id="node_opinion_rss_group_opinions_body"><legend><span class="fieldset-legend">Body</span></legend><div class="fieldset-wrapper"><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>Most Holy Father,</p>
<p>Han (Hello). My name is Cankudutawin (Red Road Woman). I am Native American Indian, of the Oceti Sakowin (Great Sioux Nation). We predate the United States. Our traditional homelands are in the Great Plains of North America. I was born in Fort Yates, North Dakota on the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and I am an enrolled member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate (People).</p>
<p>My grandmothers Katherine Ray and Stella Pretty Sounding Flute were both devout Catholics. People say that you are good, and that you are unique from your predecessors. There is talk among my people that you will listen to me, a simple Native woman from the Reservation.</p>
<p>After Christopher Columbus landed in 1492, the existence of Indigenous peoples in North and South America was forever changed. The historical trajectory of my people was altered too. Besides being subject to diseases like smallpox that we had no immunity to, we were starved, brutalized, and murdered. Millions of Indigenous people were slaughtered in the name of Manifest Destiny, born from the Doctrines of Discovery and in particular the 1493 Papal Bull.</p>
<p>The Papal Bull Inter Caetera, a solemn edict authored by Pope Alexander VI in 1493, gave Christians dominion over Indigenous lands and called for the subjugation of Native Indigenous peoples for the purpose of propagating Christian doctrine. In fact, Christians were charged with the duty of overthrowing Indigenous Nations in order to convert them to Christ, and Christian heirs were granted “full and free power, authority, and jurisdiction of every kind.” Those who attempted to controvert this Papal document were threatened with incurring “the wrath of Almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul.”</p>
<p>What this Papal Bull granted was right of conquest. Colonization began with Spain and Portugal, and every other Christian European power followed their lead. European invaders who stole Indigenous lands and lives were anointed with the ability to do so through the church, which was the foundation of state laws. Some three hundred years after Pope Alexander VI invoked deprimantur against my ancestors, John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, took the Papal Bull Inter Caetera principle of Right of Reduction, based on the Christian Latin concept of dominorum Christianorum, and made Christian dominion law vis-a-vis the invention of the Doctrine of Discovery. This Doctrine itself has no legal foundation. Using the reasoning of the Inter Caetera, the Supreme Court invalidated the Indigenous land claims of Natives whose ancestors had lived in North America for thousands of years and gifted title to American colonists who were governed by Christian leaders.</p>
<p>Without this Papal Bull, the United States of America would be forced to reconcile termination and assimilation policies it carried out against its Native inhabitants, theft of Indigenous lands and resources, treaty breaches, and the genocide it carried out through massacres like those that occurred at Sand Creek, Wounded Knee, and Whitestone Hill, among others. The United States and other colonial countries justified atrocities such as these by hiding behind the church.</p>
<p>As long as the Papal Bull Inter Caetera remains in effect, Indigenous people will continue to suffer. All U.S. law concerning Native American Indians is built upon the Marshall trilogy, that of the Doctrine of Discovery. The Right of Reduction, under the guise of the Doctrine of Discovery, is being used to feed the colonial beast and used to empower capitalism, as multinational corporations piggyback on religious quasi-legal concepts like the Doctrine of Discovery to steal from Indigenous peoples globally. In the pursuit of timber, oil, jewels and other riches, they disregard our lives.</p>
<p>I come to you with humility and respect, as someone who recognizes the authority of He who heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds; the One who came not to condemn the world, but to save it.</p>
<p>For the good of all, we ask that you formally revoke the Inter Caetera Bull of 1493. Doing so will restore our fundamental human rights and bring healing to Indigenous people and in turn, the entire world. Only you have the power to accomplish this.</p>
<p>Please meet with me, as a representative of Indian country, for an interview when you visit the United States next year. Mitakuye Oyasin.</p>
<p>With every good wish to Your Holiness,</p>
<p>Sincerely Yours,</p>
<p>Cankudutawin, Red Road Woman</p>
<p>Ruth Hopkins</p>
<p><em>“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.” Matthew 5:9</em></p>
<p><span><span><span><em>Ruth Hopkins (Sisseton Wahpeton &amp; Mdewakanton Dakota, Hunkpapa Lakota) is a writer, blogger, biologist, activist and judge.</em></span></span></span></p>
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<div class="field field-name-field-short-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Short title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">A Letter to Pope Francis</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-category field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Category:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/category/history" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">History</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/category/spirituality" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Spirituality</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-full-name field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Full name:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Ruth Hopkins</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/ruth-hopkins" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ruth Hopkins</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/pope-francis" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Pope Francis</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/papal-bull" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Papal Bull</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/tags/colonization" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Colonization</a></div><div class="field-item even"><a href="/tags/christopher-columbus" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Christopher Columbus</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author-image field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Author image:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/author/ruth-hopkins" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Ruth Hopkins</a></div></div></div>Tue, 14 Oct 2014 12:00:34 +0000mazecyrus157327 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/10/14/letter-pope-francis-abolish-papal-bull-behind-colonization#commentsRevitalizing Food: Oglala Lakota Chef Serves Pre-Colonization Menuhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/09/30/revitalizing-food-oglala-lakota-chef-serves-pre-colonization-menu-157108
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">Before there was fry bread, there were sage, white pine, chokecherries and wild buffalo.</span></p></div></div></div>Tue, 30 Sep 2014 14:00:00 +0000leeanne157108 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/09/30/revitalizing-food-oglala-lakota-chef-serves-pre-colonization-menu-157108#commentsVideo: The Invasion of America—Watch the Indigenous Land Base Shrinkhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/06/05/video-invasion-america-watch-indigenous-land-base-shrink-155170
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">American Indians in the United States know there was a time when we represented 100 percent of the population and owned 100 percent of the land. When we think of how we got where we are, the date that matters is 1492, because the Norse settlements that steal Columbus’s thunder were well north of the U.S.</span></p>
<p>Of course, there was no U.S. in 1492, and there would not be for almost 300 years. Columbus kicked off the greatest treasure hunt in human history, and the Spanish royalty he represented hauled off the lion’s share of precious metals.</p>
<p>Gold and silver were not the whole story. If they had been, the colonists could have been bought off with mining concessions. Europe was feudal when the Americas beckoned, and the basis of wealth in a feudal society is land. Every tract, or fief, belonged to some warlord, and the right to the labor of the actual occupants “ran with the land.”</p>
<p>Land titles were derived from warlord kings, and the kings got their title by the grace of God, who must have blessed their battles with other kings. Kings ruled by Divine Right, and the wealth of the royal houses of Europe came from the vassals who owned the serfs who actually worked the land.</p>
<p>In the Age of Discovery, the European royals at first funded exploration in hope of gold for the taking or a route to India around the choke points that made trade with India so expensive. Once the land was looted of portable wealth, the European warlords licensed colonization. Not colonization by individuals—who could come to style themselves kings and get too big for their britches—but rather colonization by corporations under royal charter. The charter contained rules for the distribution of the profits.</p>
<p><em>Keep reading to watch the video of the shrinking land base on the last page.</em></p>
<p></div></div></div>Thu, 05 Jun 2014 16:08:11 +0000leeanne155170 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/06/05/video-invasion-america-watch-indigenous-land-base-shrink-155170#commentsA Legacy of Genocide: The San Salvadorhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/03/04/legacy-genocide-san-salvador-153683
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">What do you see when you look out across San Diego and see the San Salvador being reconstructed?</span></p>
<p>Do you see the first wave of wave upon wave of white settlers who systematically dispossessed California’s indigenous people of their lands?</p>
<p>Do you see the beginnings of a process that reduced the indigenous population of California from 250,000 in 1800 to less than 20,000 in the matter of a century?</p>
<p><img alt="Oil painting of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo. He was painted about 1,500 times. (Wikimedia Commons)" class="media-image media-image-left" height="200" style="line-height: 1.6em; width: 142px; height: 200px; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 2px; float: left;" width="142" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://d1jrw5jterzxwu.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/default/files/uploads/juan-rodriguez-cabrillo.jpg" title="" />Do you see the face of Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo grinning maniacally back at you? Do you see the faces of him and his men joining up with Hernan Cortes in the ethnic cleansing of Mexico?</p>
<p><a href="https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/03/04/san-salvador-project-ignoring-genocide" target="_self">RELATED: Steve Newcomb's column, "The San Salvador Project: Ignoring Genocide"</a></p>
<p>Do you see Cabrillo and the men who Bernal Diaz del Castillo, the conquistador and chronicler of the Mexican conquest, wrote about when he famously stated, “We came here to serve God. And to get rich”?</p>
<p>Do you see the faces of miners who came here not to serve God, but simply to get rich? Do you see the flames in indigenous villages started by miners in acts where, as Robert F. Heizer described in <em>The Destruction of California Indians</em>, “It was not uncommon for small groups of villages to be attacked by immigrants…and virtually wiped out overnight”?<img alt="" class="media-image media-image-right" height="391" style="line-height: 1.6em; width: 260px; height: 391px; margin-left: 2px; margin-right: 2px; float: right;" width="260" typeof="foaf:Image" src="http://d1jrw5jterzxwu.cloudfront.net/sites/default/files/default/files/uploads/the-destruction-of-california-indians.jpg" title="" /></p>
<p>Do you hear the clink of gold and feel the excitement of loot in the words of Board of Port Commissioners Chairman Scott Peters when he declares, “One mission of the Port is to activate the waterfront and this will bring millions to the waterfront”?</p>
<p>Do you select “<a href="http://www.portofsandiego.org/recreation/2523-maritime-museum-port-celebrate-milestone-in-construction-of-historic-ship-replica.html" target="_blank">a slice of San Diego’s heritage and history</a>” that fits your agenda while ignoring the facts like Kevin Faulconer did with this reconstruction and that he’s doing with his statements about Barrio Logan?</p>
<p>Do you see the bloody swords of men who ruthlessly slaughtered 1,000 Aztec nobles participating in religious celebrations at the main temple in Tenochtitlan?</p>
<p></div></div></div>Tue, 04 Mar 2014 15:52:14 +0000leeanne153683 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/03/04/legacy-genocide-san-salvador-153683#commentsNative History: French and Indian War Ends With Treaty of Parishttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/02/10/native-history-french-and-indian-war-ends-treaty-paris-153485
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p><span style="line-height:1.6em;">This Date in Native History: On February 10, 1763, the French and Indian War ended, giving the British continued opportunities to fail their promises and further their attempts to remove Natives from the East coast.</span></p>
<p>In 1754, before it was the United States of America, the British declared war against the French, pitting the countries against each other in a battle that began with the Ohio Valley, which the French had already claimed.</p>
<p>Tribes allied with the French hoped to keep British expansion at bay. The French had caused less strife than the British, who were bringing their wives and families to settle while French trappers were marrying Native women. Other than bringing Catholicism, the French lived amicably among the Natives without imposing themselves on their way of life.</p>
<p>With 1.5 million British settlers along the eastern coast from Nova Scotia to Georgia and only about 75,000 French in North America, it was critical for the French to rely on their strong alliances with Natives across Canada, who were willing to support the efforts against further British colonization.</p>
<p>Wishing to avoid a war that was not their battle to fight, French documents show that when Mohawks met Mohawks privately, agreements were made not to take part in battles that would result in relatives against relatives. However, the Confederated Nations from Canada and the Six Nations of New York did fight throughout the nine years of the war.</p>
<p>The 1870 book, <em>A Particular History of the Five Years French and Indian War in New England and Parts Adjacent</em> by Samuel Francis Drake, is filled with specific details of the war’s beginning, naming those who scalped, killed and attacked, including people of all backgrounds and alliances. “Thus, year after year this practice went on. Many read the history of these wars as they read a romance. It is no romance. It was an awful reality to thousands. It should be so far realized by every one, that all who read may have a true sense of what their homes, now so pleasant, have cost.”</p>
<p></div></div></div>Mon, 10 Feb 2014 14:00:00 +0000leeanne153485 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2014/02/10/native-history-french-and-indian-war-ends-treaty-paris-153485#commentsNative History: Mayflower Brings First Permanent Settlers to Plymouthhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/12/18/native-history-mayflower-brings-first-permanent-settlers-plymouth-152736
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>This Date in Native History: On December 18, 1620, the <em>Mayflower</em> docked at Plymouth, Massachusetts, establishing the first permanent white settlement in America and forever changing the course of Native history.</p></div></div></div>Wed, 18 Dec 2013 18:00:00 +0000leeanne152736 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/12/18/native-history-mayflower-brings-first-permanent-settlers-plymouth-152736#commentsNative History: 1638 Treaty of Hartford Meant to Quell Fear of Devilhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/09/21/native-history-1638-treaty-hartford-meant-quell-fear-devil-151365
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>This Date in Native History: As the dubious founders of Indian policy, Connecticut claims the first massacre of Native people, the first forced removals, and the first reservations.</p></div></div></div>Sat, 21 Sep 2013 14:00:00 +0000leeanne151365 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/09/21/native-history-1638-treaty-hartford-meant-quell-fear-devil-151365#commentsNative History: Mayflower Sets Sail, Starts the Long Assault of Indian Countryhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/09/16/native-history-mayflower-sets-sail-starts-long-assault-indian-country-151290
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p>This Date in Native History: History.com says the <em>Mayflower </em>sailed from Plymouth, England, on September 16, 1620, but is that accurate?</p></div></div></div>Mon, 16 Sep 2013 14:00:00 +0000leeanne151290 at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.comhttp://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/09/16/native-history-mayflower-sets-sail-starts-long-assault-indian-country-151290#comments